Second Layer was an electronic-based outlet for The Sound's Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey. Borland supplied guitars and vocals while Bailey provided keyboards, bass, and drum programming. The full length 'World of Rubber' was issued in 1981, after two singles: 'State of Emergency' and 'Flesh as Property'. Since the duo was central to The Sound's sound, their side project retained some of that feel, albeit in a slightly detached fashion that's to be expected when synths and drum machines replace more human elements. Borland's songwriting wasn't much less personal here than his writing for The Sound. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Label:
Tortch Records – TOR 001
Format:
Vinyl, 7", EP, 45 RPM
Country:
UK
Released:
1979
Genre:
Electronic, Rock
Style:
New Wave
Tracklist:
A1 Courts Or Wars 3:45
A2 Metal Sheet 1:20
B Germany 5:26
Notes:
In 1980 this 7" has been reissued with the same catalogue number, but with a black / yellow coloured sleeve and with A2 being moved to the B-Side.
Religious Overdose was a post-punk band that appeared on the scene in 1979, from Northampton, United Kingdom.
They released three singles: 'I Said Go / Alien To You' (1981), '25 Minutes / Control Addicts' (1981) and 'The Girl With The Disappearing Head (I've Got To Adjust To It)' 12" EP (1982).
All were released on Glass Records.
Vocalist Alex Novak also performed with Attrition at the time, but eventually moved on to found The Tempest by 1984. [SOURCE: LAST.FM]
Label:
Adventures In Reality Recordings – ARR004
Format:
Cassette, Album, C30
Country:
UK
Released:
1983
Genre:
Rock
Style:
Alternative Rock
Tracklist:
A1 In This Century
A2 Push The Key
A3 I Said Go
A4 Control Addicts
B1 The Tower
B2 The Girl With The Disappearing Head
B3 Wild Cat
Notes:
Recorded live at The Black Lion, Northampton, England May 1982.
Olla was an alternative / Post-Punk band from New Zealand, active early 90s that only released this 7''. Imagine the soundstage and instrumentation of mid 80s Sonic Youth (but with only one guy on vocals) reaching for the modal droney hypnosis of the longer cuts on The Velvet Underground and Nico. They've even got an organ on the opener, which is probably the best track here. B1 does away with the haze to pile on the noise and feedback, whereas the other two cuts on the B-side are a lot less noisy but a lot more trance-inducing. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label:
Flying Nun Records – FN214, Festival Records – K10502
Николай Коперник ("Nicolaus Copernicus", also known as Nikolay Kopernik) is a Russian art-rock / new wave / psychedelic / neo-romanticism band from Moscow, founded in 1981 by singer, guitarist and composer Yuri Orlov. The group gained a wide popularity after the release of their debut reel-to-reel album 'Родина' ("Motherland") in 1986. Nicolaus Copernicus became one of the most original and eccentric projects on the Moscow underground rock scene, alongside with such bands as Zvuki Mu and Center. They had a chance to rehearse and work with many Western musicians, including Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, FrankZappa and Chrissie Hynde. They also played on the same stage with The Sugarcubes at the large rock-festival Lituanika in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The band went on a permanent hiatus in 1993 but was revived by Yuri Orlov in 2000s with a new line-up. [SOURCE: DISCOGS]
Label:
Not On Label (Николай Коперник Self-released) – none
Mecanique Vegetale is an enigma -unclear if it is one man or one band. This is an experimental album with strong industrial and ambiental influences which are conveyed through cheap-ass synths in a drone-like fashion. The tracks almost exclusively rely on short melodies being repeated for their whole duration, with a couple of layers of various sounds added in because why not. Not only experimental but also avant-garde, melody is sometimes thrown out the window and replaced by the paranoid sounds of the synthesizer.
None of the tracks are particularly memorable, excepting three longer compositions: "Ballade Mystique" and "Sorry for the Sound" which are arguably the best tracks on the recording. They create a dark atmosphere reminiscent of Dark Ambient which hangs heavily in the air. They are easily the most interesting as they are also the ones which evoke a particular mood and can justify their length -the rest of the tracks are experimental curiosities which are way longer than they should be.
The other memorable track is "Brouillard Diabolique", another lengthy, dark composition which, unlike the previously mentioned songs, tries to combine a mood with the tired synth lines that would belong in most of the tracks of this album. The droning, and honestly bad synth lines ruin any sense of ambience that the track could have been able to achieve. Recommended to those fascinated with obscurities and experimental albums that throw the rules out the window. For most people, this would only feel boring and befuddling. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Lemon Kittens was a short lived experimental group formed by Karl Blake in his home town of Reading. Karl asked Danielle Dax to design the cover for an EP, Danielle joined, and pretty soon the group became a duo. Signed by Nurse With Wound's John Fothergill, they became part of the United Dairies label's roster of eclectic and bizarre acts on the very outer fringes of the UK's alternative scene. Splitting in 1982, Danielle became a successful indie solo act, although her bid to make the mainstream ultimately failed. Karl ploughed ahead into more obscure realms with his group Shock Headed Peters, and occasionally playing as a member of Current 93 and Sol Invictus. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
The lush, dreamlike British pop trio Kitchens of Distinction were formed in London in 1986 by singer / bassist Patrick Fitzgerald, guitarist Julian Swales, and drummer Dan Goodwin. Taking their name from a Hygena advertisement, they issued their 1987 debut single, 'Last Gasp Death Shuffle', on their own Gold Rush label, signing to One Little Indian after the record garnered Single of the Week honors in the pages of the NME. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
California-based Joanna Brouk composed slow, sparse works intended for meditation and reflection, utilizing acoustic instruments, vintage synthesizers, field recordings, and the human voice. Her music was inspired by classical minimalism, but it was embraced by the burgeoning new age movement during the 1980s. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1949, Brouk moved to Berkeley, California in 1970 to study literature. Inspired by the cadences of poetry and the human voice, as well as the rhythms and soundings of nature, she began creating music. She spent numerous hours experimenting with synthesizers at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in Oakland, and studied under the tutelage of avant-garde legends Robert Ashley and Terry Riley. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Time for some Minimal Wave low-budget electronica from 1980, the peak era for electronic music, before the atrocity of Midi made everything play in time; 1980 BD (before digital). Inertia was a Douglas Benford project that edited the single 'The Screen / A Submarine', that contains a catalogue / analogue synth playing along to a home organ rhythm box, with passionless vocals that verge on talking. Sounds awful doesn't it? In some aspects it is musically non-existent, no melody, no song-craft. This is the sound of alienated youth, sick of the rock trip, finding their way in a new world of endless possibilities. Their best work was to come, but this is a charming moment in the birth pangs of minimal electronic pop, played by fingers not computers. [SOURCE: DIE OR D.I.Y.?]
